Faith and Doubt on a Flying Carpet
by debbiechan
Summary: Orihime is thinking about how Soul Society did or didn't change her, and of course Ichigo and Ishida wander through her thoughts as well.


Faith and Doubt on a Flying Carpet

by debbiechan

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, not the manga or anime or any part thereof, but Shinigami haunt my dreams and Quincy arrows pierce my soul.

Warnings: None, unless you aren't caught up with the manga then there are _SPOILERS AHOY._

Description: On Urahara's flying carpet going home, Orihime wonders if Soul Society changed her.

The darkness that had captured her opened with a flapping sound, and Orihime felt herself tossed into the blue sky.

She landed on Ishida-kun who landed on Kurosaki-kun who landed on Yoruichi-san who let out a screechy meow as her black paws splayed in all directions.

Sado-kun, thank goodness, had fallen apart from the rest, or the giant boy would have surely hurt someone.

"Please?" Orihime extended her hand to Sado, who pulled her off the mass of fallen friends with one tug of his tattooed arm.

"Gah!" Kurosaki didn't like being under Ishida at all. He tossed the white-robed Quincy off his back with a violent shrug, and Ishida fell on Orihime again--his bony knees thwacking across her legs.

Orihime couldn't help but laugh. Ishida looked like a bad boy thrown across his mother's lap for a spanking.

"Sorry, sorry, " Ishida mumbled. "Sorry, Inoue-san." He blushed as he rose and scooted away.

It was at that moment that Orihime noticed that they were still high above ground, moving through the blue morning on a flying carpet. Urahara-san was at the helm of the undulating rectangle and his shop people, that tall guy and the two little kids, were at the rear. Everyone was apologizing for having fallen on everyone else, and before long even Urahara-san himself was apologizing--although for what, Orihime wasn't sure. The strange shopkeeper was on his knees in an elegant bow, his green-striped beach hat off his head and pressed to his chest.

"You really didn't do anything wrong," Kurosaki was saying. "And although your motives were questionable, you helped us all become stronger…."

Orihime breathed in a deep gulp of air. _What a ride_. She was still dizzy from having been caught like a butterfly by Urahara's carpet-thingie and then having fallen all over her friends when the rectangle unfurled. Clouds were spinning past. She was back home, but at the moment, this world seemed stranger than the one she had just left.

Had she really been to Soul Society and back?

The boys were crowding their heads around Kurosaki's new trinket, the shiny Shinigami "battle license" given to him by Captain Ukitake. Orihime felt herself move into the circle of heads. Her body didn't feel different. She didn't feel stronger, or wiser, or even more _alive_ than she had before Soul Society.

Who could travel to the Realm of the Dead and not be changed?

"In Soul Society," Kurosaki was saying, "there is a law regarding Shinigami substitutes…."

Orihime squinted into the morning light and wondered if the sun was at another horizon point in Soul Society. Hadn't Ishida-kun noted that it was spring _there_ but summer _here_? Maybe it didn't even matter that she didn't feel stronger or changed. All she had wanted to do was help Kurosaki-kun bring their condemned friend back to this world.

Actually, Kurosaki had not brought back Rukia but some palm-sized badge instead. It lay in his hand--a five-sided medallion with a black skull etched on its silvery surface.

"Ukitake said it would come in handy someday," Kurosaki said, pocketing the little pentagon. He looked as ho-hum as ever, but Orihime knew that he was changed.

K_urosaki-kun is so confident now._

She had grown so much fonder of them all--that was an expected difference. Training with Sado-kun and Yoruichi-san in that abandoned warehouse before the trip, and then hiding in Seireitei alleyways for so many days with Ishida-kun--how could she _not_ feel closer to these people? Even though she hadn't seen Kurosaki much at all in Soul Society, her connection to him felt intense as ever. If she closed her eyes, she could _smell _the presence of the orange-haired boy at her shoulder. His unwavering power, his calm strength.

But Rukia had been the one to change Kurosaki.

Orihime felt her insides clench with a tiny sadness: _Alright, that was one thing I learned._

While working so hard in the fourth division building with the wounded, she had found that she could fuse torn tissues and anesthetize pain with the touch of her palms. She could make all those weary, dazed soldiers smile with just one kind word, _yet …_ Kuchiki Rukia, _not_ _Inoue Orihime_, had been the one to stop the rain in Kurosaki's heart.

T_hat shouldn't matter. What matters is that Kurosaki-kun isn't sad anymore._

"Ichigo!" Yoruichi's deep voice was still surprising--maybe more so now that everyone knew he was a _she_. "Don't put that badge in your desk or stick it into a schoolbook and forget about it!"

"If he sticks it in a book," Ishida said, "it will never be seen by him again."

"Right, right," muttered Kurosaki. "I'll keep it with me always in case I'm ever pulled over by the Shinigami port authority."

Yoruichi was a stocky, tough little black cat, but Orihime could see the beautiful woman smiling in the green eyes. Yoruichi was the _coolest_. She and those other amazing Shinigami women--they all radiated a self-reliance Orihime envied.

I_t must feel wonderful to be a **real** fighter, to feel that sort of strength in your muscles and pride in your body._

Orihime hung her legs over the flying carpet's edge and waggled her feet. Orihime was not afraid. She never expected bad things to happen. She trusted in other people to make things right. Hadn't they always? Tatsuki had healed her loneliness after Onii-chan had died. Kurosaki had saved Kuchiki from the execution….

I'_ve never done anything that important._

Orihime trusted in other people but she didn't trust in herself. Oh, Ishida-kun had tried to tell her that her shield had saved them, but the truth was that Orihime had been stupid enough to walk away with those twelfth division guys right _before _the bombs went off. People had died… and Orihime had been helpless to save them all.

Orihime moved her gaze from above to below. The carpet was slowing down, and she could recognize Karakura neighborhoods. They were approaching the old district with its far-apart fenced properties… a suburb with large gardens. Ishida-kun's house was there.

She looked at the Quincy. She knew something wasn't right with him, but she hadn't been able to figure out what. He had been badly hurt in his battle with the twelfth division captain, but he seemed healed now. He had a melancholy look, but hadn't he always? Ishida didn't emanate the sort of sadness Orihime had sensed in Kurosaki for so many years. Ishida's sadness wasn't grief; it was …

O_H!_ Orihime had almost forgotten. Ishida-kun was in love with Kuchiki-san! _That's right_--he had sewn that breathtaking white dress with the petal-stitching for her. And Kuchiki-san had decided to remain in Soul Society instead of coming back to school, so…

I_shida-kun must feel lonely._

He was sitting, holding his chin in his hand, while the strong winds whipped his dark hair across his face.

Orihime felt a sudden urge to throw her arms around him. Then the feeling made her feel flushed--_but_ _why? _Ishida-kun was handsome, but not in a way that was obvious. If one caught sight of his eyes behind the glare of his glasses, they were such pretty eyes! _Lovely, lovely, slanted violet eyes._

Orihime had never kissed a boy before or even imagined kissing anyone but Kurosaki-kun, but she thought that she might like to put her lips against Ishida's pale face. The idea filled her with unexpected tenderness. Oh yes, she would cover his cheeks with enthusiastic, tiny kisses all over and then find that sad mouth with her own and make it glad.

He raised his head at that moment and caught her looking at him.

They both startled.

"Ah, Ishida-kun!" Orihime pointed to an orchard of cherry trees below. "Isn't this close to your house?"

"_Oh…"_ Ishida looked a bit spooked. "Yeah, it is. Urahara-san, drop me off over here?"

Orihime giggled. She couldn't help it. Ishida looked so wide-eyed and confused, the way he had the day Orihime had summoned Ayume and Shonou in all their bright-winged glory to attend to what was surely a deathly fever (Orihime didn't know then that Ishida always looked afflicted when he was thinking hard). Funny how Ishida was so brave around Shinigami but scared of her fairies! Ishida had _freaked _when Ayame flew at his face.

"Later, Ishida," Kurosaki was saying. "I'll call you if something comes up."

Ishida narrowed those violet eyes and rose to his full height on the flying carpet. "Did you already forget, Kurosaki?"

It never failed to impress Orihime how Ishida could go from goofy to menacing with a mere hardening of his jawline. Everyone else felt it too--Ishida was about to make one of his pronouncements.

"You are a Shinigami," Ishida said in his soft, serious voice. "And I am a Quincy. When we meet again, we'll be meeting as enemies." Then he squatted to the edge of the flying carpet, which was skimming close to a sidewalk now, and threw himself over. "Sayonara!"

Sado looked as if he was one blink away from rolling his eyes heavenward.

Kurosaki was slack-jawed. "Wha--?"

The Urahara shop people looked apprehensive, and Yoruichi had a solemn look in her green eyes.

"Oh, Ishida-kun." Orihime smiled widely, and everyone turned to look at her. "He's not honest with himself."

Kurosaki made a disgruntled face and put his hands on his hips. "Seriously!"

"Oh, self-deception may be one of Ishida-kun's good traits," Orihime spoke the words in a bright, happy voice and then shrugged her shoulders. She never expected people to understand her when she said things like that, so she was taken aback as Sado spoke up.

"I agree," said the dark, muscular boy. He was wearing the shirt with the blue Quincy cross that Ishida had made for him. _Maybe Sado-kun understands Ishida a little too?_

"Really?" Kurosaki was shaking his head. "Well, you guys are more mature than I am…."

The flying carpet billowed with a sudden whooshing sound, and Orihime felt wind roar in her ears as Urahara somehow caused the rectangle to ascend at full speed.

"Your place is next," called the light, singsong voice. "Right, Orihime-san?" As the carpet turned a sharp corner, Orihime caught a slight smile on the shopkeeper's--_no_, make that _exiled Shinigami captain's_--face. Had everyone's secret self but hers been revealed lately?

"Whoops," said Urahara. "Didn't mean to take that curve so fast. It's been a while since I maneuvered this baby."

U_rahara-san never worries about anything._

Orihime touched both her barrettes with her hands and felt so much lighter than she had moments ago. Her self-doubt was waning. Maybe she had not discovered that much about herself in Soul Society, but things were going to be alright back in her little apartment with its spare furnishings and little shrine to Onii-chan.

"Here's where I get off!" she called to Urahara.

As the flying carpet plummeted close to the ground again, Orihime skipped to the curb and waved back at her friends.

Kurosaki was smiling at her with open affection.

H_e is happy, happy, happy now. That's all that matters_.

The flying carpet sped into the clouds and out of sight, and Orihime decided that there was nothing wrong with depending on other people. As long as Kurosaki-kun was so happy and confident, she would be too.

The next thing Orihime felt was hunger--even though the fourth division had served breakfast less than an hour ago. Ah, the food in Soul Society had been so _ordinary…. _

Maybe there was still strawberry jam in the fridge? For stir-fry potatoes, of course.

She skipped up the steps to the apartment, humming and fingering the little lace corsage on the hem of her shirt.

E_nd_

Thanks to LisaB for being a faithful beta-reader and for picking up "something Bleachy" for me when she was in Paris! I can't wait to see what it is!


End file.
